Girls & dresses

Last fall one of the first youth group activities my daughter had was a tea-party. The idea was for them to dress up in fancy dresses {unless they didn’t want to}. Christine has always loved dresses and has usually had a few to choose from. This fall was different, she’s decided she doesn’t like skirts or dresses – I’m assuming this is an age thing even though it makes me sad. Anyway, we searched for something she liked and then one day we went to a bridal store. This bridal store was selling demo dresses for $25. A demo dress meant it had the company name stitched in the back and a hole cut or poked through all the layers. They were from a company the store was no longer going to carry.

I have to say it was really strange to be in a bridal shop while my daughter tried on bridesmaid dresses. In the end we found a dress that was a really pretty green and a style she liked that more or less fit on top.

As you can see it was rather long and “old” for an 11 year old. {yes, you can also see my bedroom is painted dark – three dark brown walls, and one avocado green wall — I LOVE them. I’ve lost track of how many years ago I painted them, it’s been at least three-possibly as many as five} So, we went to work with fixing it to be age appropriate. She wanted the bottom to have pick ups – this was a perfect way to easily shorten the dress the foot+ that needed to come off. :-D I just shorten the most interior liner layer to the correct length then I used big multi-colored button to pick up the other layers. I sewed through all the layers to the lining. I started at the bottom and work my way up not putting any on the bum so it didn’t look like there was a bustle. Because the top is just spaghetti straps, mom took her on a different day and got a women’s 2x Nordstrom, dark brown, t-shirt and I made a bolo jacket she could wear over it. She wouldn’t let me take pictures of her with it on, so you’ll have to trust me that it looked better on her than it does hanging on this hanger.

It has been really fun for her to have a “fancy” dress. She wore it for the Sugar Plum party mom had for the girls at Christmas and again for the father-daughter banquet our church had for middle school girls. She has slimed down since adjusting the dress and making the bolo jacket, so she wore a t-shirt or tank under it and a different little jacket over it (dead of winter, it was cold out). One of her youth leaders took her as a substitute little sister with her and her dad. It was very sweet. I don’t have permission to put their photos up – I will ask tomorrow at church and then edit the post :-D.

*edited to add photo of her with one of her youth leaders:

Today mom, Christine & I had a fun day. We went thrift store shopping. We ended up in the same store location, but it is now a consignment store. The three of us hadn’t been shopping together since that time last fall when we got this dress. Today I was trying hard to get Christine to look at skirts or dresses for Easter Sunday. We don’t put much into new clothes for Easter, in the past it’s been more of an excuse to get something springy, whether it was new or just pulling it out of the “to grow into bin” – but she wasn’t having anything to do with that idea. I don’t have any clothes for her to grow into, or seasonal put away; I have to admit I’m tired of the same pair of jeans & zip up sweatshirt – every week. However, in the end she allowed me to get a women’s size 16-18W peasant skirt – to make her a dress out of. The skirt is from apostrophe. I’m super excited :-D! I love that she is consistently resisting ready made dresses/skirts, but will still let me make them for her. We also went to Jo-Ann’s and got some beads; this evening I had the fun of making six necklaces for my mom! Now off to bed…It’s 11:30pm, but I lose an hour of sleep.

I hope you have a wonderfully rest-full day tomorrow.

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